Safe motherhood

Children born without support of a trained midwife or other health worker have a higher chance to die during or within the first 48 hours after birth. Therefor, an effective and efficient approach to fight child mortality comprises elements of safe motherhood.

Safe motherhoodIn South Asia, an alarmingly high amount of mothers and babies die during, or just after, labor. Hospitals in this area often are difficult to reach. Traditional midwifes – who inherit the profession from their mothers, are usually not trained at all. With our programs on safe motherhood we reduce the risk to neonatal mortality. How do we approach this? We train traditional midwifes in post-natal care counseling and we supply them with a safe-delivery kit. Furthermore, we educate them on healthy nutrition during and after pregnancy. After all: healthy nutrition increases the chance to a healthy child.

Parts of our programs on safe motherhood are focused on sexual and reproductive health and rights (srgr): family planning and the prevention of early marriages and pregnancies. Both phenomena’s are quite common in South Asia.